Not much can be said of other aspects of HPL’s poetry. T.O.Mabbott remarked that “his poetry seems to me mostly written ‘with his left hand’” (“H.P. Lovecraft: An Appreciation” [1944], FDOC43), while Winfield Townley Scott delivered the most severe indictment, referring to the bulk of HPL’s verse as “eighteenth-century rubbish” (“Lovecraft as a Poet” [1945]), although speaking kindly of “The Messenger” and Fungi from Yuggoth. HPL’s poetry still receives relatively little critical scrutiny, although the Fungihas been analyzed from numerous perspectives. As HPL’s complete verse has now been gathered in The
< previous page page_210 next page > < previous page page_211 next page >
Page 211
Ancient Track: Complete Poetical Works(2001), one may hope that this body of his work will now be the subject of further study.
See Winfield Townley Scott, “Lovecraft as a Poet,” in Rhode Island on Lovecraft,ed. Donald M.Grant and Thomas P.Hadley (rev. ed. as “A Parenthesis on Lovecraft as Poet” in Scott’s Exiles and Fabrications[1961] and in FDOC;S.T. Joshi, “A Look at Lovecraft’s Fantastic Poetry,” Aklo,Summer 1991, pp. 20–30.
“Polaris.”
Short story (1,530 words); probably written in late spring or summer 1918. First published in the Philosopher(December 1920), an amateur paper edited by Alfred Galpin; rpt. National Amateur(May 1926), Fantasy Fan(February 1934), and WT(December 1937); first collected in O;corrected text in D
The narrator appears to have a dream in which he is initially a disembodied spirit contemplating some seemingly mythical realm, the land of Lomar, whose principal city Olathoë is threatened with attack from the Inutos, “squat, hellish, yellow fiends.” In a subsequent “dream” the narrator learns that he has a body, and is one of the Lomarians. He is “feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to stress and hardships,” so is denied a place in the actual army of defenders; but he is given the important task of manning the watch-tower of Thapnen, since “my eyes were the keenest of the city.” Unfortunately, at the critical moment Polaris, the Pole Star, winks down at him and casts a spell so that he falls asleep; he strives to wake up and finds that when he does so he is in a room through whose window he sees “the horrible swaying trees of a dream-swamp” (i.e., his “waking” life). He convinces himself that “I am still dreaming,” and vainly tries to wake up, but is unable to do so.
The story is not a dream-fantasy but rather—like “The Tomb”—a case of psychic possession by a distant ancestor, as indicated by the poem inserted in the tale, which the narrator fancies the Pole Star speaks to him: “Slumber, watcher, till the spheres/Six and twenty thousand years/Have revolv’d, and I return/ To the spot where now I burn.” This alludes to the fact that Polaris’s position is not fixed above the North Pole, and that, as the earth wobbles on its axis, it takes twenty-six thousand years for Polaris to return to its position above the Pole. (When the Pyramids of Egypt were built, Alpha Draconis was the Pole Star; in thirteen thousand years, Vega will be.) In other words, the man’s spirit has gone back twenty-six thousand years and identified with the spirit of his ancestor. “Polaris” was in part the result of a controversy over religion between HPL and Maurice W.Moe. In a long letter to Moe (May 15, 1918; SL1.62) HPL notes that “Several nights ago I had a strange dream of a strange city—a city of many palaces and gilded domes, lying in a hollow betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills…. I was, as I said, aware of this city visually. I was in it and around it. But certainly I had no corporeal existence.” (HPL cites the dream in the course of discussing the importance of distinguishing between dream and reality.) The story was presumably written shortly after this date. HPL himself frequently remarked on the story’s apparent stylistic similarity to the work of Lord Dunsany, which HPL would read only a year or so later; but possibly the style of the tale was derived from Poe’s prose poems, which themselves partly influenced Dunsany’s style.
< previous page page_211 next page > < previous page page_212 next page >
Page 212
See S.T.Joshi, “On ‘Polaris,’” CryptNo. 15 (Lammas 1983): 22–25; Ralph E.Vaughan, “The Horror of ‘Polaris,’” CryptNo. 15 (Lammas 1983): 26–27.
“Power of Wine: A Satire, The.”
Poem (80 lines); written in late 1914. First published in the [Providence] Evening News(January 13, 1915); rpt. Tryout(April 1916); rpt. National Enquirer(March 28, 1918).
HPL satirizes the ill effects of liquor and intoxication. For other poems on this theme, see “Temperance Song” ( Dixie Booster,Spring 1916), “Monody on the Late King Alcohol” ( Tryout,August 1919), and other untitled poems included in AT. See also the humorous story “Old Bugs” (1919). Pratt, Dr.
In “The Horror in the Burying-Ground,” an old physician who, summoned to the Sprague house after Tom Sprague has suffered some kind of fit, pronounces Sprague dead and hands the body over to Henry Thorndike, the undertaker. Later Pratt is disturbed by suspicions that Sprague is not in fact dead. Shortly thereafter he declares Thorndike dead after the latter suddenly takes ill at Sprague’s funeral.
“President’s Message.”
Published in the United Amateur(September 1917, November 1917, January 1918, March 1918, May 1918, July 1918). Routine reports of amateur activity written by HPL during his presidency of the UAPA.
“President’s Message.”
Published in the National Amateur(November [1922]– January 1923, March 1923, May 1923, July 1923, September 1923 [as “The President’s Annual Report”]).
Reports on amateur activity issued by HPL upon his taking over the presidency of the NAPA after the resignation of William J.Dowdell.
Price, E[dgar] Hoffmann
(1898–1989), pulp writer and correspondent of HPL (1932–37). HPL may have been influenced by Price’s work years before he ever met him: “The Horror at Red Hook” (1925) makes reference to a devil-worshipping sect, the Yezidis, which was probably borrowed from Price’s “The Stranger from Kurdistan” ( WT,July 1925). HPL’s first encounter (indirect) with Price was unfavorable: “after due deliberation & grave consultation with E. Hoffmann Price, [Farnsworth] Wright has very properly rejected my ‘Strange High House in the Mist,’ as not sufficiently clear for the acute minds of his highly intelligent readers” (HPL to Donald Wandrei, [August 2, 1927]; ms. JHL). HPL first met Price in New Orleans on June 12, 1932, when Robert E. Howard telegraphed Price of HPL’s presence there. HPL spent at least another week in New Orleans, much of it in Price’s company. (A curious myth has emerged that Price took HPL to a brothel, whereupon HPL was purportedly amused to discover that several of the women were readers of his stories in WT. This story—apocryphal or not—applies to Seabury Quinn.) An extensive correspondence, mostly dealing with pulp fiction, ensued. Price, having lost a regular job in May 1932, was compelled to write all manner of work for the pulps and defended the practice against HPL’s condemnation of pulp fiction as formulaic